


robbery in progress

by cloudtalking



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Trans Neil, Vampire AU, i love my trans gay (undead) sons, self care fic so chapters arent huge sorry, sign language!!, tags updated per chapter, trans andrew, vamp twinyards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudtalking/pseuds/cloudtalking
Summary: "at a certain point, people started to be born with a mutated gene. when their hearts stopped, so long as there was blood in their bodies, they continued living."au where andrew's neck fetish is a survival instinct.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> adsgfdg these chapters are short ye but that means i'll update fast and i already have three of them so?? i rlly just wanted to write soft vampires, trans andreil, and sign language soo here u go.
> 
> chapter warnings: luther being super duper religious to the point that it's a cult, homophobia, conversion camp mentions, suicidal thoughts, open relationship, andrew is a wreck of not a human being, and talk of death.

“my cousin would like to apply for a bank, please,” nicky tells the coordinator, ever so pleasant and polite.

“and your cousin can’t apply by himself?” the woman asks instead of answering, personality just as reptilian and serpentine as the yellow slits of her eyes.

said cousin, swaddled in the absolute softest clothes either he or nicky could find, growled softly from his seat in the corner of the office. his eyes were more gold than yellow, more valuable than sulfur, more guarded than worthless rock.

“he has special circumstances,” nicky explained, forcing his grin to shine even brighter. maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could smile so sun-like it would turn her to ash. “would you please help us sort something out?”

she sighed, a sound like nails on a chalkboard. “I’ll see what we can do, what are his preferences?”

the list they eventually came up with, painstakingly slow due to andrew’s cooperation being mostly by way of disapproving grunts, came out like this: MUST BE MALE, SINGLE, UNDERSTANDING, ATHLETIC, OPEN MINDED, NOT TOO TALL, KNOWS SIGN, PREFERABLY NOT STRAIGHT, PASSABLE AT COOKING, RESPECTFUL OF BOUNDARIES, and GOOD AT MATH.

“damn, ‘drew,” nicky whistled lowly, rereading the paperwork in the shotgun seat of the car. “you know, i think you just built the perfect boy, too bad he’s just a bank.”

andrew shrugged, then signed his response, talking out loud seemingly a waste of energy.

“yes! milkshakes! great idea!” nicky grinned— real this time, not like the pleasantries he was drowning the coordinator in earlier. “hopefully she’ll be able to find us your boy wonder— you have ridiculously high standards, you know that?”

andrew stuck his middle finger up at him. 

“thought so,” nicky nodded, then pressed on the gas. 

the sun was coming up soon, after all. nicky could not afford to let andrew be found outdoors when the light breached the horizon.

 

nicky was recently eighteen when he got the call, an automated message with the words: TILDA MINYARD ONCE-DECEASED NINE PM EST, CAUSE OF DEATH; CAR ACCIDENT, MULTIPLE LACERATIONS, BROKEN RIBS, PUNCTURED LUNGS—

nicky hung up.

there was enough death nowadays that the monotone declaration was sickeningly familiar. luther incorporated it into his sermon whenever a parishioner had passed; a world so numb to the marvel of god’s work that hospitals programmed computers to announce the dead.

nicky knew the hospitals gave the family the option to announce it themselves first; it simply happened that no one close to luther and his church had enough family left to call in.

humans were a dying breed, and only the purest of which were allowed into the house of luther’s god. any association with those he deemed as demons would lead to being excommunicated from the church, seeing as Luther had long ago granted himself the powers of the highest of the clergy.

the fact was that nicky was one in a million, and even that was dwindling. over seven billion people in the world, and less than 0.001% of them could die.

luther called them the last of the holy ones, the chosen knights of god, a beacon of hope in a dying world. nicky would rather be a sinner than listen to his propaganda.

at a certain point, people started to be born with a mutated gene. when their hearts stopped, so long as there was blood in their bodies, they continued living.

luther called it a bastardization of god’s greatest creation. nicky paid enough attention in biology to call it natural selection.

evolution had deemed nicky ill-fit to survive and nicky (silently, because only the unspoken in the hemmick house was ever loud enough to be important) agreed. being a product of your environment was supposed to imply that you were raised to function sufficiently in said environment; nicky wasn’t sure how much longer he could live in his natural habitat.

sometimes (silently, because it felt like screaming) nicky entertained the thought that if he stopped breathing, he would be reborn. that his father would look upon his once-dead son and toss him out for his disgrace.

sometimes (silently, because it felt like crying) nicky knew it wouldn’t happen. that if he held himself underwater for too long or swallowed one too many pills or simply threw himself off the bell tower, he would break into a million pieces and no amount of blood transfusions would ever restart his heart.

sometimes (silently, because it felt like confessing) nicky was fine with that.

nicky found sin in holy ground, kissing a boy in a closet underneath god’s roof. his father had let him taste hell afterwards, taking his son’s repentance into his own hands.

hell felt a lot like a belt breaking the skin on his back, felt like a boot to the face, felt like reciting lines from leviticus until his mouth was too bashed in for him to speak.

then luther sent him to a school of redemption, for the preservation of the holy order of the human race. not only was his kind of love a sin against god, it was a sin against humanity. he needed to continue on his lineage, needed to be survived by the human race.

nicky, who paid attention in biology, argued a surrogate. luther had him crucified notwithstanding.

when nicky left, he found himself that much more willing to be human; you only had to die once.

but humans were by nature conniving, survivable creatures created by circumstance. nicky put himself on a plane to europe with carefully crafted lies and feminine bodies pressed close to his own.

luther and maria thought germany was a fitting reward for being cured. nicky would rather not haunt a country with them in it if haunting is what death meant for him, for he was fully prepared to die.

but so would anyone without seeing the sun, and nicky had never before seen erik klose.

luther would burn him inside and out if he knew he was kissing a boy with teeth sharp enough to cut his tongue on, a boy with golden eyes and a knowledge of his own invincibility. if he knew he was letting the boy cut open the paths to his heart and drink from them, if he knew he was finding salvation in one of the damned.

luther was in america and nicky was in stuttgart. what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and what he did know couldn’t hurt nicky from across an ocean.

the first “i love you” nicky gave to erik was also a “fuck you” to everyone who ever told him he couldn’t have this, that this was a sin.

 

then, a car crash. tilda and andrew minyard, fatally wounded.

then, andrew minyard got up like nothing had happened.

then, luther realized that whoever had fathered tilda’s children was not a member of the church like she had claimed.

then, luther wanted them cast out, and nicky took them in instead.

his savior let him go, because that was what you were supposed to do when you loved someone. nicky wanted to keep erik so close he was under his skin, so they ceased to exist without the other, two heartbeats becoming one.

now, he was stuck with two immortal children, both of which starved. they stayed locked up like animals, one by force and one by choice, clawing at the doors and begging for their poisons. it was all nicky could do not to give it to them.

_he has special circumstances._ the bloodlust wasn’t supposed to hit this hard.

apparently, the supplements didn’t react well with testosterone, not that anyone thought to warn them.

hence wrapping one of the starving beasts in blankets and sweaters to hide his feverish shivering, promising him a treat of his choice for his cooperation.

hungry dogs were never loyal, but minyards were not treasonous by nature. 

nicky knew that for all the horror stories luther told, his cousins would never be the monsters in them.

 

“we’re home!” nicky announced, relief palpable in the wake of his cousin’s ever worsening pallor.

andrew glared at him, a reminder that yes, he did have eyes, and no, he wasn’t far gone enough not to see their two-story suburban home right in front of them. 

“do you want help getting out?” nicky offered, which he knew was a mistake right after he said it, because nothing would make a minyard refuse help more than the offer of it.

and so, because the twins were easy enough to read once you had accustomed yourself to their language, andrew pushed himself out the passenger’s side and fell onto the pavement. 

_“andrew,”_ nicky whisper-screamed, because it was too early on in their occupation of the house to piss off the neighbors. 

the bloodbank needed to hurry up. nicky wasn’t sure andrew could wait much longer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> neil vs. a decent father figure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asjkjn so ima straight up say: this chap has not been edited by anyone but me and i'm bad at this language that i speak fluently so it'll prolly suck but i wanted it up today so i digress
> 
> tw legal documents not yet updated for my trans son, death mentions, implied forced female presentation but dw we're fixin it, brief mention of the nest & what goes on in it, human trafficking mentioning neil bein sold but thas it
> 
> hope u enjoy!!!

neil stuffed the last of the contents of his dresser drawer into his duffel bag, zipping it up and taking a breath.

one year, two months, twenty one days. that was how long it had been since his father had killed his mother and kidnapped him. since his uncle barged into the basement of his childhood home and killed his father and half of his inner circle in a shower of bullets. since the FBI put him into the protective custody of the REGISTRY. since the moriyamas were made aware of his continued existence and informed him of his status as their property. 

it took riko one year, two months, and ten days to die for the first time. neil wished he had been the cause; he wouldn’t have left a possibility for a next time.

it was something riko had come in to brag about during his allotted visits, though no sensitive information was shared under the recorded sessions.  a  _ skiing accident  _ he had said, glint in his eye promising a far bloodier story. neil wished it was that easy. 

skiing or no, riko was given the opportunity to apply for a bank, much like any other recently-deceased V-positive. 

banks, being the shorthand for blood banks; V-negatives or dormant V-positives that entered themselves into the system of blood prostitution. most did it because they had no other option, finding themselves alone and unable to support themselves. some did it because they were running away. neil did it because the FBI concluded it would be hardest both for others to find him and for they themselves to lose him.

there was a knock on the door, to the beat of  _ für elise.  _

“come in,” neil allowed, trying not to feel touched at the remembered password.

 

joseph michael hernandez, neil’s supervisor for his time at the REGISTRY dorms, walked slowly through the open door. the very first meeting, he’d discussed the passwords; personalized for every group of banks in the dormitory. 

“there’s been some break-ins in the past,” hernandez explained back in september, when neil was still going through orientation.  _ break-ins  _ meaning  _ robbers _ ; people who thought banks were nothing more than blood bags, and thought that it was their right to take them.

“it’s free real estate,” someone muttered, sending laughter through the crowd like ripples in the pond. neil, ever the rock, stood off to the side unaffected. 

hernandez waited for them to settle down before continuing. “if you hear this—“ he raps the tune of  _ yankee doodle  _ against the wall— “it’s either me or someone else in the group. if you give out this password to anyone else, the punishment will be another year in the program for you to repeat your lessons and have time to dwell on your wrongdoings. we try to make sure you know who’s at your door before you open it; you can never be too careful with your safety.”

neil agreed, discreetly pulling his supervisor aside after the briefing. 

“can i have my own password?” he asked, wincing at how needy it sounded. he didn’t like the idea of random teenagers being privy to the only semblance of privacy he was allotted.

hernandez nodded. “of course, what do you want it to be?” and that was that.

neil opened the door for nothing else. in a facility where all the higher ups already had the key to his room and belongings, all safety was sacred. 

it seemed trivial now; from tomorrow on, he’d never need it again.

 

“did they tell you where your assignment is yet?” hernandez asked.

neil shook his head, though he didn’t need the coordinators to tell him to know where it was. west virginia, edgar allen university, the raven’s nest.

it was the arrangement that kept him alive: he was safe only so long as the REGISTRY felt he needed to be trained. once he graduated their crash course on being a living blood bank, he would become moriyama property.

it was one of the many laws concerning banks that an active V-positive could not request any one bank without being related to said bank in some way shape or form. however, it was possible that one could be specific enough in their preferences that no one else but their intended could possibly fit the bill.

as much as neil spent his entire life trying to fit in, he was unique enough that whatever description riko gave would stick.

neil could imagine it now:  _ PREFERABLY SHORT, HAS AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM, MULTILINGUAL, AT LEAST FIVE CONFIRMED KILLS, DRESSES LIKE A HOMELESS PERSON, HAS MAYBE THREE MATERIAL POSSESSIONS _

“glad i could be the first to give you the good news then,” hernandez said, grinning and pulling out a large beige file from behind his back. “this is the info on your guard and your expected living situation, as well as a packet with my contact information and instructions on what to do in difficult situations where your guard isn’t behaving as they should be.”

neil took it, feeling the weight of it in his hands. “this is a lot.”

hernandez shrugged, “this is the person you’re supposed to be trusting with your life, and they’re a complete stranger. it’s the least i can do to give you any upper hand.”

neil knew there was nothing in that file about riko that would hold a grain of truth; moriyama men were skilled in weaving lies, working diligently at their looms, creating the perfect tapestry to cover the blunders of the second son. nonetheless, the gesture was sweet; a proper  _ you-might-get-murdered-here’s-how-to-maybe-not-do-that  _ from the organization that set him up as the perfect target _.  _

“thanks,” he said, already planning on relocating it to the closest trash can. he wouldn’t need it where he was going.

“not a problem,” hernandez said, though the amount of paperwork the file contained probably took hours for the office workers. “anything you need, call me, okay?”

neil nodded, not intending to call him for anything at all. he doubted he was to be allowed a phone in the nest, if there was even cell service so deep underground. “got it.”

 

riko had told him all about what he called neil’s new home, painting the setting of his nightmares in perfect detail. a residency for the second branch of the moriyama family, far enough under the earth and a prison enough to be worthy of its place as hell adjacent. 

the raven’s nest was a place for those with signed away souls and far away ambitions, persisting through the fields of punishment to elysium, doing everything they could to survive being buried alive until they could dig their way out. 

it was just as well; all the ravens were at least once dead; neil knew that he would never have a chance of leaving riko’s side unless he joined their ranks.

but the truth was this: for all that naomi josten’s identification was that of a V-positive, neil would never be naomi.

 

hernandez sighed. “i’m gonna miss you, shortstack.”

neil bit his lip. he wasn’t in the habit of truths, especially ones so close to his heart, but he’d likely never see his supervisor again anyway.

“me too,” he meant it more than anything else he had said in months. 

this was the first person who was truly accepting of him as a boy, for reasons other than how helpful it would be for hiding. this was the man who helped him pick out his name when he was considering options. this was the man that snuck him fruit cups in the mess hall and helped him with his homework. this was the man that called him by the right pronouns every time, despite the person witness protection told him to present as. 

“good luck, kid,” hernandez said, shine in his eyes. he left soon after, and neil was stuck with the revelation that he would never see him again. 

neil wouldn’t let his eyes tear up. it wasn’t worth getting upset over, he had known from the beginning that it wouldn’t be long before he was ripped from his sanctuary by cruel talons and locked away for eternity.

for want of a distraction, he looked down at the heavy file in his hand and flipped it open.

 

name: ANDREA JORDAN MINYARD

age: 16

sex: FEMALE

status: V-GENE POSITIVE, ACTIVE 

coordinator’s notes: prefers he/him pronouns, prefers to be called “andrew,” seemingly in a very fragile mental state, needs someone who understands boundaries and how to deal with mental illness.

INCLUDED: a headshot, dyed blonde hair and golden monolid eyes staring uninterested at the camera. it was as if the world could burn around him and he’d still be unaffected, forever unmovable and unfeeling. neil wondered how hot the world would have to burn to melt him down.

under the headshot, a note:

_ YOU COULD’VE GONE TO TWO PEOPLE, BUT ONE OF THEM REQUESTED YOU FROM THE OPTIONS WITH YOUR DEADNAME AND THE OTHER CALLED YOU NEIL. I WASN'T GOING TO LEAVE YOU WITH A TRANSPHOBIC ASSHOLE. GOOD LUCK! _

_ -JOSEPH MICHAEL HERNANDEZ _

 

he read the entire folder on the bus ride to his assignment, and didn't cry at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for readin yo hope u had fun and lmk what u thought!!
> 
> scream at me on @twnyards!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> andrew steals food and nicky parkours out of phone sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: uhh yet some more legal docs not yet updated for trans ppl, mentions of aaron's withdrawal & andrew's hunger pains, open relationship, implied one night stand ig, talk of potential hookups but not explicitly, nicky works himself too hard more at 8
> 
> i'm sry this was late!! my fam got home yesterday & i missed them & i celebrated & had a rabbit date & then i was too tired to type rip

name: NAOMI ALEXANDRA JOSTEN

age: 15

sex: FEMALE. 

status: V-GENE POSITIVE, DORMANT

supervisor’s notes: prefers he/him pronouns, wants to be called “neil,” hates cars and similarly closed off spaces, to be handled with care and respect of boundaries.

INCLUDED: a headshot; auburn hair and ice-blue eyes, fire in them melting through the rest of his glacial features and the fourth wall of the picture, scarred face something out of a horror show.

 

“he’ll do,” andrew nodded, handing nicky back the file. 

nicky collapsed, both in relief and under the weight of the other ten discarded files, each branded with the bright red logo: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF BANKS AND KEEPERS. 

“thank god,” he sighed, sinking into the couch. “your standards are probably the highest i’ve ever seen for someone so short.”

andrew flipped him off, walking to the kitchen and stealing one of aaron’s vanilla yogurts, topping it off with crumbled oreo bits.

“he’s gonna be mad once he gets out,” nicky warned.

“we been knew,” andrew countered, which was true.

 

andrew had decided he was well enough to walk around, eating and sifting through the options the registry had sent in the day before, but aaron wasn’t yet in such a condition. 

they both had to pretend not to hear him; moaning and crying and screaming in the upstairs bathroom between their rooms. 

so andrew took his plastic spoon and dug into aaron’s disgusting yogurt without consequence, a regular addition to the domesticity of sibling rivalry.

 

nicky checked the time: 7am

“you should probably head in now,” he warned. “the sun should be rising like, yesterday.”

“the sun rises everyday,” andrew said, raising an eyebrow.

“and how would you know? hm?” nicky jabbed a finger in the air at him. “you aren’t supposed to see the sun at all, you little shit.”

andrew rolled his eyes. “i’m not getting burned just by looking at a giant gaseous orb, or else i’d die just looking at you.”

“that was mean, but i’m just going to take it as a compliment, because this means that I light up your world, and that’s beautiful.”

“shut up, nicky.”

“go to sleep, wise ass.”

 

andrew retreated back to his bedroom, the blanket nicky had used on the couch draped over his shoulders like a cape, because he was a rat bastard.

“oh, and take your meds!” he yelled up at him, but andrew was already at the top of the stairs, waving him off. 

nicky sighed, getting up to the linen closet to grab the most uncomfortable quilt in the house, gifted to him by his mother.

parenting was harder than full house made it out to be.

 

he scrolled through his recent messages, hitting the uppermost text log— it was titled with more heart emojis than anything should have a right to, but it still wasn’t enough to accurately portray his feelings. he hit the camera icon and waited.

“babe?” erik’s voice, groggy with sleep, filtered through the phone.

“hey love, it’s your wake up call— you’re supposed to be getting ready for work,” nicky pointed out, making erik curse him out in german.

“wait! i don’t know that one,” nicky commented, bright eyes reflected back at him in the corner of the screen.

erik mumbled some more, sitting up so the screen brightened with the light from the windows of his apartment. erik blessed him with the mugshot of a greek statue; perfect in every way, but unable to escape the ugly angles and shitty lighting of police photography.

“fischkopf,” erik repeated, running a hand through his gorgeous bedhead. “it means, uh.. fish head.” 

“fish head?” nicky echoed. “you’re usually better than that.”

“i had a rough night,” erik winced.

nicky, who for all his mediocrity in biology was not a dumbass, looked him over, disbelieving. 

“yeah, those hickies sure look rough, might wanna skip work and see a doctor,” nicky said, voice dry.

erik’s hand slapped to his neck, where red was traveling up his skin to his cheeks. “uh, yeah. i got mauled.”

nicky snorted. “uh huh. you can tell me all about it when you get dressed and shave,” he waved his hand at him dismissively. “shoo.”

 

and so erik did— an older man with dark hair and eyes, not as beautiful as nicky’s, of course. he had a particular fascination with erik’s marble skin, which nicky didn’t blame him at all for, leaving dark imprints everywhere his mouth could reach. 

it wasn’t that nicky was jealous, although being able to touch erik was enough to be envious of in itself. they had agreed before he left: they knew they loved each other and that no one else would ever mean as much, would ever change their lives so much as the other had. kissing strangers wasn’t that big of a deal, as long as there was no feelings involved. 

it was that erik was living his second life to the fullest, and nicky was digging his own grave.

 

“ah, to be nocturnal,” nicky sighed. 

“you don’t need to be V-positive to have a nightlife, you know,” erik pointed out. 

“i’ve got two teenage boys to take care of, kinda kills your libido.” nicky scrunched up his nose, “they’re disgusting, if you could see what i have to clean up—“

erik held up his hand. “i’ll take your word for it, beautiful. but if you need any help with that..” 

nicky stuck out his tongue, feeling his face get red. “that’s not fair, stop that right now.”

erik laughed, rough and sleepy and beautiful. “isn’t there a job opening at that nightclub you were talking about anyway? why don’t you go for it? that might help.”

“the point of that job was that they might take my cousins too, which, ew.” 

“parents do it too,” erik shrugged.

“you’re disgusting.”

“love you too, babe. call you later!” erik waved into the camera. 

“good luck at work!” nicky said, mirroring him.

when erik hung up, nicky slouched back into the couch. breathed in, breathed out.

 

germany was built different, the county rebuilding itself for the sake of the majority of their population, adjusting to the needs of the V-positives. 

nicky was there while they were ripping up the infrastructure, trading metros for subways and streets for underground passageways. most of them preferred the nocturnal lifestyle besides; the cities being the only places where one could elect not to. 

the south, having the highest V-negative population of anywhere in the states, had no such renovations, meaning that although most schools operated on a dusk to twilight schedule, other areas of life like dairy queen and doctors appointments were run through to morning hours.

other areas of life, like the two extra jobs nicky wasn’t supposed to be working.

but all of andrew’s medication and the mortgage put holes in nicky’s already shallow pockets, so he threw the itchy quilt off and got ready for work. 

besides, he was allowed to see the sunrise every morning. it was a small price to pay in comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading!! hope u liked it yo!! i might not get the next one up in time either but uhh i encourage u to remind me until further notice
> 
> catch these hands at @twynyards


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some backstory, some arguments, some cat pics, a lot of being a dick. welcome to andrew's pov.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i edited, but i suck at this language i speak so fair warning.
> 
> also warnings: neglect mentions, thinking abt death, homophobia, straight trans dude aaron not understanding the gays, mentions of andrew starving (due to not having a blood source) and the symptoms of painful hunger, mentions of withdrawal and xanax, ig??? lactose intolerance?? and andrew's apathy

 

something about waiting: it lasts forever.

andrew minyard had not been born alone, though he was so for years. he wasn’t born to suffer, though he rarely did anything else. the first mistake required a long wait to be rectified. that much was easy; he never knew of the error, assumed he had no one, and lived in peace with that for almost his entire life. the solution sprung out of nowhere, and suddenly he was at the end of a queue he hadn’t known he was on in the first place. the second hadn’t taken very long at all to affect him; his first real memory was of him in his first foster home, starving and screaming in a house where no one seemed to hear him.

he was taken from that home for health violations and child neglect, apparently having been on the brink of starvation. andrew would never get over how easily death came to children, especially in a world where most people didn’t have to worry about it.

the wait to remedy his suffering was still ongoing, himself holding a spot in limbo among over seven billion other people, all having booked an appointment with the grim reaper. 

said reaper liked some of them better than others, nicky being a prime example. he wouldn’t have to wait very long at all. 

sometimes the wait to die was worse than others. case in point: now.

andrew’s stomach contorted into painful knots and digested itself, his throat hoarse from screaming and vomiting up bile. he was on and off feverish, chills running through his body and his bones. it almost hurt to stay conscious, and the risk of losing himself to sleep was high enough that he thought it best just to stay in bed.

however, for all it hurt simply to exist, he could not afford to pretend the opposite was true; not when this particular bout of suffering was about to come to an end.

 

“neil’s plane gets here at two in the morning,” nicky said, looking up from the email on his phone.

“we know,” aaron replied, nursing a headache and a can of coke. he’d been free of his bathroom prison for long enough to hear his cousin the first eight hundred times he’d repeated it.

nicky closed the email and put down his phone, but his fingers twitched by it on the table, as if at any second he would receive word that plans already in action had been changed. “sorry i don’t have your perfect photographic memory or whatever—“

“eidetic,” aaron corrected without thinking, blinking in surprise at his own abruptness.

“yeah, that too,” nicky sighed. “i just wanna make sure we’ve got it down, that’s all.”

“it was perfect the first time, now it’s just annoying,” aaron remarked, getting up from the table and opening the fridge. “i don’t think i’ll be physically able to forget it for the rest of— who ate all of my yoghurts?”

neither nicky nor andrew said anything, the latter scrolling through pictures of particularly grumpy looking cats on his phone while sitting across from nicky at the table.

aaron slammed the fridge door shut so hard that one of nicky’s _proud parent of an honor’s student_ magnets fell off. “you guys suck.”

“maybe neil is lactose intolerant,” nicky piped up. “then he can watch your yoghurt wars and laugh with me from the sidelines.”

andrew looked up, locked eyes with aaron and raised an eyebrow. aaron shrugged and turned to nicky. “you really don’t know?”

“know what?” nicky asked, looking between the twins.

andrew put down his phone and signed: _it doesn’t stop us._

nicky blinked. “motherfuck. you’re both lactose intolerant? and you didn’t tell me? i’m ending the yoghurt wars right here and now. new boy won’t even get to see a yoghurt ever again, i swear to god.”

nicky had a talent for caring more about nothing in one breath than andrew’s foster parents had ever cared about him in his entire life. aaron rolled his eyes. “it’s never hurt us nicky, chill.”

“that’s a lie.” nicky jabbed his index finger towards aaron’s face. “a big fat lie in this house of god. andrew has never given a shit about getting himself hurt— which we will talk about by the way, eventually— and you’ve been on xanax this whole time, you just couldn’t feel it.”

“ouch,” said aaron, in a voice that wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he had intended.

_second rule of fight club,_ andrew signed. no hitting below the belt.

“this whole family breaks the second rule of fight club on the reg,” nicky countered, which was true. everything that came out of their mouths was aimed to be a critical hit, they just weren’t used to nicky taking the shots. he had the decency to look guilty at least, which was more than either of the twins ever bothered with.

“what’s got you in an asshole mood?” aaron asked; it was rare that the eldest cousin take after the rest of his family in such a way. “boyfriend trouble?”

aaron said _boyfriend_ like some people would say cuss words, coupled with a sneer and obvious discontent. it made nicky wince and andrew bite his lip, besides the fact that the both of them had dealt with much crueler blows by much harder hitters. they were old wounds, and they still hurt when poked at.

aaron was getting better with their sexuality, but slowly, years of conditioning and homophobic teachings melting like a glacier under the sun. as much as that was true, one cheap shot deserves another.

“i didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” nicky admitted. “but don’t fuck around like that when neil gets here— we don’t know what he’s into, and he might not be so forgiving.” 

“yeah, yeah. whatever,” aaron said, though it was clear nicky’s orders had bounced right off of his head. he gave up on the fridge and dove into the pantry in a vain attempt to find a snack capable of measuring up to his precious vanilla yoghurt.

 

what nicky knew was this: the twins had grown up separately and still managed to be identical. when nicky came back from germany for the funeral, they’d asked to be called andrew and aaron in place of the names he had been led to believe belonged to them.

“but i already call you that?” nicky cocked his head, turning to the cousin he’d known the longest.

“not _ee-aye-arr-en_ erin,” he had clarified. “the other one, _ay-ay-arr-oh-en_. i’m a guy.”

“oh,” nicky had said, mouth mimicking the shape of his words. “cool, i mean— yeah, sure, totally, one hundred percent, yes. what else can i do?”

he was expecting a more understanding cousin after that, one cured of all his hateful thoughts and bigotry. instead, he got the same prejudiced teenager, if a little more susceptible to the ways  nicky tried to get through to him.

what andrew knew was this: aaron had come to terms with his gender very slowly, and relied on concrete reasonings in order to justify it to himself. one of which being that the way he liked girls was not as a girl, but as a boy.

he couldn’t understand that andrew liked boys the same way, that nicky’s love for men was as natural as breathing. he only knew attraction in terms of his own, and his education was slow going. 

 

andrew waved his hand to catch nicky’s attention, then opened his palm so all his fingers were spread out. _five minutes._ if they left any later, neil would be stranded at the airport while they were still stuck in traffic, and andrew would spend that much more time suffering.

nicky cursed, racing to grab his bag and  keys from where he’d left them on the couch. “if anyone wants to come with, speak or sign now or forever hold your peace!”

the twins looked to each other, shrugged, and headed out to the car wordlessly. andrew dragged behind; just a little slower, just a little more in pain. he steeled his face so it looked less like he was about to throw up and more like he was an asshole, both of which being equally true.

it would be over soon anyway, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. 

_neil josten._ andrew sounded it out in his mind, turning the name over in his brain until it was less of a name and more of a vacant sound. the solution to andrew’s currently most pressing problem.

it was almost disappointing. at least the pain was something to feel. neil josten was nothing, all banks were, and nothing was all he would leave him with.

“you boys ready?” nicky asked, sliding into the driver’s seat after them.

“get on with it,” aaron said, kicking the back of nicky’s chair.

“rude,” nicky scolded, but put the key in the ignition and twisted it to the right.

andrew dozed off to the rumbling of both his stomach and the engine, staring at the dark south carolina landscape as it rolled by and waiting for nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope u liked it!!! i'm not sure if i'll get an update up next weekend cause finals but otherwise we gucci!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY BACK. had this chap for months just didn’t put it up lmao. lots of buildup, not actual meeting, but that one will be up soon soooo hell ye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: misgendering, talks of abuse done to other banks (an older man manipulating a younger woman), murder

airport terminals were a familiar evil in neil’s life, but no matter how often he went through them, the lines never got better. he never had to head to baggage claim, at least. all of his material possessions could fit in a single carry on. 

the comforting thing about airports: no one seemed to give a shit about him. everyone there was a stranger to everyone else, and the only people that ever dressed up were there on business or first class flights. it wasn’t at all odd to see a boy in ratty clothes wandering through— it wasn’t like anyone else looked much better at two in the morning, no matter how nocturnal society had become, they were still human at their core. 

the problem with airports: the fear every time his identification is checked, instinctive anxiety bubbling up in his chest when the name and picture on the documents doesn’t quite match up with the person he has come to be. 

his paperwork was legitimate now; gifted to him by witness protection on the condition that he’d be allowed to change it when the threat of his history was cleared from the horizon. he wouldn’t have to worry about being caught for there was nothing to be caught for, fake names and identity fraud a thing of the past. his mother wasn’t there to squeeze his wrist so tight it bruised, making him wince every time she had to hand their papers over. she was dead, and he was real, however strange that felt.

the truth was this: his documents looked more real when he was fake, everything about the lie a little more true to him. he was allowed to be calvin, alexander, stefan; now he wasn’t anything but who witness protection said he was, and that was nothing like him at all. 

“naomi?” the woman at the desk asked, looking from him to his identification and back again.

“i haven’t gotten it changed since, uh—“ neil gestured to himself; black hair, bound chest, faint mustache hairs he’d been advised to shave but would only under threat of death actually do so. he looked nothing like his pictures, carefully staged to exude harmlessness and femininity, as if both equates to the same thing. 

the lady nodded, taking that for what it was. it was two am, after all, and not even in a nocturnal society did anyone have the energy to start a fuss. she handed the papers back, which neil snatched greedily from her hands, and called for the next arrival to come up to the desk.

neil scurried away, fleeing the scene as fast as he possibly could without arousing suspicion. as much as he was finally allowed to take his time wandering like any other arrival, staying any longer than was needed would probably give him hives.

from the email he had received from the REGISTRY, his guard was supposed to receive him at exit gate F, which meant sprinting to the very end of the pick-up areas to sit and waiting for someone he’d only seen one picture of and who had probably only seen one terrifyingly misleading picture of him.

hernandez had assured him that he’d picked neil’s guard specifically because he had respected his pronouns, but that in itself could mean nothing. V-positives would say whatever they had to to get a bank in their possession, so long as it got them what they wanted. the older banks that came in for re-education and debriefing delighted in spinning horror stories for the undergrads of the program, and that was often all they were, but many tended to be warnings.

simone hathaway, fresh off of her third assignment, was pressured for a story of either kind; preferably the first, for none of the undergrads wanted to be told that they would all be dying horribly. however, the likelihood was that they would all be entering perfect death traps, so simone would not risk sparing them of that reality.

“my first guard was really sweet, at first,” she said, vowels sweet and slow like southern honey. “he was a real stand up guy, discounting the fact that he was about twice my age— this was back when people were still scared of dying, so banks tended to be a lot younger and guards a lot older. it wasn’t odd that he had chosen me, and back then they let us pick guards for ourselves once they said they liked us, so i wasn’t surprised to see him when he came in for visitation.

“he was really nice— like, crazy nice. it was almost creepy, and now it definitely is. he bought me gifts that started out as food and then became jewlery and clothes, he talked to me about his problems with his wife and then asked me to talk about boys, he said he wanted to know everything about me so he would be able to care for me when he was my guard.”

“that’s.. weird,” one of the younger banks frowned. “and you didn’t notice?”

simone shrugged. “i was used to men yelling and hitting me— this was tame, i thought it was normal.”

she was quiet after that. back then, banks tended to have higher rates of homelessness and abuse pre-REGISTRY than even now. 

“long story short, i chose him. i wanted to pick some old lady instead, but her caretakers said they didn’t want anyone with a criminal history in the home, regardless of the fact that it was self defense.

“his house was nice, and so was his wife, but then the missus went to dinner with him and didn’t come back when he did, and i never saw her again.”

this was sometimes where the stories ended; where the frightened banks called the cops or the REGISTRY and got the hell out of dodge. it didn’t.

“he got home, i asked about his wife, and he locked me in the basement from the outside. he came home from work everyday, fed his dog, walked around his kitchen, and visited me— all i had to listen to was his footsteps and my own breathing, so i paid attention to this shit, believe it or not. after, he’d come down and visit me, tell me i had to feed him before he would give me any food of my own. if i refused, we both starved, but he’d beat me until he didn’t have to get my permission to get the blood out from my body.”

“fuck,” said one of the loudest undergrads, but he wasn’t very loud at all now. 

simone laughed, but it fell from her mouth like tar. “yeah, he did that too— he was pretty greedy that way, wanted dinner  _ and  _ a show. ‘cept one of my best friends in the program was a jailbird, and taught us all to make shivs from pretty much anything. he wasn’t exactly ready for me to stab him in the throat, no matter how fucking powerful he wanted to be.”

there was a cacophony of audible surprise when she smiled; oozing the same dark substance as was in her laughter, black and poisonous.

“did he die?” neil asked, causing about as much surprise as simone’s twisted grin. he rarely spoke except to dole out a swift reprimand, usually resulting in silencing the rest of his class.

simone shook her head, and disapointment shot through the room like a bullet. “he was just surprised enough that i could finally run from him and call the cops. I was there for a month— you all could be longer.”

and that was the truth, though neil in that moment had sworn to himself he’d kill his guard and strike faster than it took for the other ravens to kill him first. 

neil in this moment had yet to plan out the death of andrew minyard. he figures that plan A should suffice regardless: fight like hell.

a car pulled up to the pick-up lane. the driver’s side window rolled down, only for neil to see a man about a few inches too tall and a few shades to dark to be his guard. nevertheless, he called out: “neil josten?”

neil adjusted his bag over his shoulder and walked over to meet his new captors. “that’s me.”

the not-guard arched a brow. “nice hair.”

“thanks, i grew it myself.”

peering into the backseat and seeing two for the price of one, he braced himself for impact. this was going to be be rough., 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s been so long,,,,, lov y’all tho thx for sticking thru it

**Author's Note:**

> y'all are so great yo ty for reading!!


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